The Wholesale Klezmer Band will play their first ever Binghamton performance on Saturday, June 17, at 7:30 pm, The band features Yosl (Joe) Kurland (vocals and fiddle), Peggy Davis (flute and vocals) and Aaron Bousel (accordion). The Cranberry Coffeehouse is located at Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 183 Riverside Dr., Binghamton. A $10 per person donation at the door is suggested (all funds, minus a small fee for use of the space, benefit our performers).
“The Wholesale Klezmer Band performs in Yiddish and Loshn Koydesh, (Ashkenazic Hebrew), and they specialize in making it accessible to the English speaking world with translations, stories, explanations, visual aids and that universal language that speaks to your feet and makes them want to dance,” said organizers of the event.

Klezmer music arose in medieval eastern European Jewish communities to perform at holidays and celebratory events (especially weddings). It’s origins lay in Jewish folk music and cantorial chanting, with elements of other local ethnic folk tunes (especially those of the Roma) and military band music. When brought to the United States by Jewish immigrants in the 20th century, it was further influenced by jazz and theater music.